listerfeend Posted February 2 Report Share Posted February 2 (edited) Ok, so in Oathbringer, as we know, Moash is able to permanently kill a Herald using a Rasyium dagger with a gem in the pommel. Fair enough, very interesting. However, this seems to completely destroy the entire Desolation/Return to Braize cycle that has been going on. Ok, so Shards basically have access to infinite information. From this WoB Quote Questioner So I'm wondering, how omniscient are the Vessels? Brandon Sanderson This is a difficult question to answer because they don't know everything, but they could theoretically. And so, the actual Vessel needs to apply the power and learn things. And they don't know the future exactly. Particularly, you'll notice some hints of this in Oathbringer. There are certain things that really foul with their ability to see the future. It's whenever we kind of get the equivalence of an atium shadow right? Reflection that reflects that someone sees the future, and then suddenly you end up with this kind of difficult chain to follow. Questioner Can you tell me who might be the most all-knowing out of all of them? Brandon Sanderson I will say the older they are the more they generally know. Questioner So probably not Harmony then? Brandon Sanderson Probably not Harmony. The Great American Read: Other Worlds with Brandon Sanderson (Oct. 25, 2018) I basically imagine it very much like what we do today with a cellphone. Don't know a thing, Shard Google (Shardle?) it, and boom, knowledge, right? They DO have to know what they don't know to go searching for that knowledge, but that's a minor point. Odium, of ALL of the Shards, should be intimately aware of how Raysium works. It's literally part of him. It is not a stretch at all to assume he should have known all along that what happened to Jezrien was possible, basically from the get go. At the very least he should have known within a couple Desolations, right? So, why, in Ado's name, did it take, what? Anywhere between a couple hundred, to potentially several thousand years (I think the original timeline for the Desolations is a little murky, and we can't count the 4500 years between Aharetiam(sp?) since there was no Fused action going on) for this idea to come to fruition? It's beyond reason to assume that Odium, and therefore the Fused, have no way to get their hands on Raysium on Braize. If it was basically that simple to completely destroy them, thus making it impossible for them to return, even if they had to kill them when they were on Roshar, it shouldn't have taken 99 Desolations, a False Desolation, and finally a True Desolation, for this to happen. My thoughts on this are basically that, even if it took a few Desolations for them to pull it off, permanently killing all 10 Heralds this way, during the Desolations, would mean that there would be no Heralds on Braize to lock the Fused there, thus removing the block on the rebirth cycle of the Fused, and that's game over for Roshar. "Super Easy, Barely an Inconvenience"™ This feels very much like a "So the movie can happen"™ kind of moment. ETA: I'm still getting a feel for where and what spoilers are allowed where, if there are any issues, please let me know Edited February 2 by listerfeend 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CtrlAltDepressed Posted February 2 Report Share Posted February 2 Agreed on all points. We know that the heralds were killed many many times by the fused. In fact, the only time that only one was killed they all quit lol. Why wouldn't Odium have them use Raysium blades from the beginning or at least a couple hundred years in? It makes no sense that Odium would allow this charade to continue since the Heralds have pretty much single handedly prevented him from getting what he wants. As an extension of that, why havent Honor / Cultivation used this or anti-voidlight against Odium / Fused? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mdross81 he/him Posted February 2 Report Share Posted February 2 49 minutes ago, listerfeend said: So, why, in Ado's name, did it take, what? Anywhere between a couple hundred, to potentially several thousand years (I think the original timeline for the Desolations is a little murky, and we can't count the 4500 years between Aharetiam(sp?) since there was no Fused action going on) for this idea to come to fruition? It's beyond reason to assume that Odium, and therefore the Fused, have no way to get their hands on Raysium on Braize. If it was basically that simple to completely destroy them, thus making it impossible for them to return, even if they had to kill them when they were on Roshar, it shouldn't have taken 99 Desolations, a False Desolation, and finally a True Desolation, for this to happen. My thoughts on this are basically that, even if it took a few Desolations for them to pull it off, permanently killing all 10 Heralds this way, during the Desolations, would mean that there would be no Heralds on Braize to lock the Fused there, thus removing the block on the rebirth cycle of the Fused, and that's game over for Roshar. "Super Easy, Barely an Inconvenience"™ Interesting questions posed here. I think perhaps a partial answer is that it wasn’t merely stabbing Jezrien with a Raysium dagger that interrupted the return-to-Braize mechanic of the Oathpact. Rather, it seems to have been the trapping of his soul in the gemstone that caused it. This is assuming that Kalak’s explanation in the epigraphs from Part 4 of RoW is correct. From the chapter 92 epigraph: Quote The bond is what keeps us alive. You sever that, and we will slowly decompose into ordinary souls—with no valid Connection to the Physical or Spiritual Realms. Capture one of us with your knives, and you won’t be left with a spren in a jar, foolish ones. You’ll be left with a being that eventually fades away into the Beyond. And according to Raboniel, Odium’s forces didn’t know about the possibility of trapping a Herald’s soul like this until BAM was captured. From RoW chapter 84: Quote “We’ve used this metal for several Returns to drain Stormlight from Radiants,” Raboniel said. “It conducts Investiture, drawing it from a source and pulling it inward. We used it to fill gemstones, but didn’t realize until the fall of Ba-Ado-Mishram that capturing spren in gemstones was possible. It was then that one of us—She Who Dreams—realized it might be possible to trap a Herald’s soul in the same way.” And as you note, for the 4500 years after the abandonment of the Oathpact, Odium’s forces were stuck on Braize. A little bit after the quote above, Raboniel also notes that “Raysium is exceptionally difficult to obtain.” All of that said, I get your broader point that, with access to Shardic levels of knowledge it seems like Odium could have figured this out sooner. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 2 Report Share Posted February 2 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: Ok, so in Oathbringer, as we know, Moash is able to permanently kill a Herald using a Rasyium dagger with a gem in the pommel. Fair enough, very interesting. However, this seems to completely destroy the entire Desolation/Return to Braize cycle that has been going on. This was a "recent" discovery. It was made by Radiants, who trapped Mishram in the gemstone during the False Desolation and that's when Fused became aware that you can trap spren and Cognitive Shadows into a gemstone as well. They didn't even know spren can be trapped in gemstones before that. RoW ch 84: Quote “We’ve used this metal for several Returns to drain Stormlight from Radiants,” Raboniel said. “It conducts Investiture, drawing it from a source and pulling it inward. We used it to fill gemstones, but didn’t realize until the fall of Ba-Ado-Mishram that capturing spren in gemstones was possible. It was then that one of us—She Who Dreams—realized it might be possible to trap a Herald’s soul in the same way.” 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: Ok, so Shards basically have access to infinite information. From this WoB This WoB tells you that they aren't not omniscient, they don't know everything. While the power knows a lot, Vessels aren't aware of all that knowledge. Vessel's mind isn't infinite, it can't comprehend infinity. Vessels have to first think about it and then they become aware, or they would have to find this information somewhere else. Rayse would need to first think about the possibility of using gemstones to trap Heralds to know it's even possible. And if he had never thought about trapping them because he didn't know they could be trapped like that, then he would have never known it's possible. Spoiler Questioner When somebody takes up a Shard, do they inherently get knowledge when they get that Shard? For example, does Taravangian know about hemalurgy, now, just because he took up a Shard? Or was that just Ruin's...? Brandon Sanderson Excellent question. Taking up a Shard is going to impart a large amount of knowledge, more than even a Shard can process immediately, and it will take some time. And it's going to give you the ability to access a lot of other kinds of knowledge. Shards aren't omnipresent, but they kind of are; they are able to do many things at once, they are able to focus on places and be aware of that location in a lot of instances. But at the same time, they are limited in their ability to... they don't know everything. They might be able to get access to most things, but it takes conscious... like, "I need to know this. I need to find it out. It happens it's written in a book that I can just... it's on this other planet, and I absorb it and immediately know." Assuming it's not written in a way that you can't access, which certain formats make it hard to do. So, Taravangian, if he cared to think about what hemalurgy is, it's well enough known that he could be like, "I wonder if there's a way to steal... Oh, it's this. This is how it works on this planet." That would be an almost instantaneous thing for him to be able to learn, if he wanted to. But does he hold it in his head right now? That remains to be seen. Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023) 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: Odium, of ALL of the Shards, should be intimately aware of how Raysium works. It's literally part of him. It is not a stretch at all to assume he should have known all along that what happened to Jezrien was possible, basically from the get go. At the very least he should have known within a couple Desolations, right? Not really. It wasn't about Raysium, it was about gemstones. They didn't know at all you can capture spren and souls in gemstones. 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: So, why, in Ado's name, did it take, what? Anywhere between a couple hundred, to potentially several thousand years (I think the original timeline for the Desolations is a little murky, and we can't count the 4500 years between Aharetiam(sp?) since there was no Fused action going on) 7000 Rosharan years, and we can count the 4500 years after Aharietiam because some Fused were at least mentally active during the False Desolation (look at the first quote). RoW ch 80: Quote "The singers first put Jezrien into a gemstone. They think they are clever, discovering they can trap us in those. It only took them seven thousand years." 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: it shouldn't have taken 99 Desolations, a False Desolation, and finally a True Desolation, for this to happen. A little bit more than 15 Desolations in total, less than 50: Spoiler R'Shara How many times did a Herald break and let the Fused return to Roshar? Brandon Sanderson Oh, so how many Desolations were there, total? R'Shara Between the Oathpact and Aharietiam? Brandon Sanderson Not as many as people say there are. R'Shara More than fifty, less than fifty? Brandon Sanderson I would guess offhand more than fifteen, but not much more. That's the sort of thing I just have to look at the timeline on. You're catching me flat-footed on that one. I would have to go look. Not as many as they think, but more than fifteen. R'Shara More than fifteen? Okay, because I actually asked more than fifty. Brandon Sanderson Oh you asked more than fifty. More than fifteen, less than fifty. Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018) 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: My thoughts on this are basically that, even if it took a few Desolations for them to pull it off, permanently killing all 10 Heralds this way, during the Desolations, would mean that there would be no Heralds on Braize to lock the Fused there, thus removing the block on the rebirth cycle of the Fused, and that's game over for Roshar. "Super Easy, Barely an Inconvenience"™ Yes, the Oathpact would be weakened with every Herald's death, potentially broken. There is also another thing to consider here - Odium is restricted in his actions by chains placed upon him by Honor. We don't know to what extent this is, but it might also prevent him from sharing knowledge with his servants, so he had to trust them to come up with scientific advancements on their own. RoW ch 112: Quote “Basically?” Dalinar pressed. “What happens, Odium, if you break your word.” “Then the contract is void, and I am in your power. Same, but reversed, if you break the contract. You would be in my power, and the restrictions Honor placed upon me—chaining me to the Rosharan system and preventing me from using my powers on most individuals—would be void." Overall I think because it's not as easy as "I know what Raysium does thus I know Heralds can be trapped" and it requires figuring out where to trap them, something that nobody knew before the False Desolation and the imprisonment of BAM. Odium simply never searched for this possibility with his mind, thus he didn't know this was an option. Even if the power could have provided this knowledge, there was no conscious effort from the Vessel to look for it. It's not a perfect or satisfying explanation, but it's probably how Brandon would explain all questions like "why Shard X didn't tell Y to his servants earlier." Sometimes we have to suspend our disbelief and simply enjoy the story, otherwise there would be no story to tell. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Returned Posted February 3 Report Share Posted February 3 (edited) In addition to what's already been posted, I think that there might be a couple of other considerations. Raysium doesn't seem common, so getting one of the few weapons made of the metal (and correctly) might not be a small feat. There may not have been even the possibility of equipping soldiers with them in general. We don't know how hard it was to get the materials for even just the one dagger. Killing a Herald in any way was not easy for most of their existences. Some of them tended to die in battle during Desolations, but that's a far cry from getting a Raysium dagger into the hands of someone who could actually find a Herald on the battlefield and strike them down with it. It's a near certainty that the vast, vast majority of individuals who fought Heralds died because they were incredibly formidable-- access to tons of magic fueled directly by Honor, millennia of combat experience, etc. Even in the depths of his madness, Taln is astute enough to snatch darts out of the air. So you need a lucky soldier who happens to also already have such a weapon to survive the fight long enough to deal the killing blow, and the odds don't seem favorable for that. The specific level of debilitation we see with Jezrien was due in large part to a more recent development (widely believed to be related to what happened to Ba Ado Mishram), and even then it's only Jezrien who lies down drunk and helpless. That doesn't impact how the Raysium dagger interacts with them, but is similar to the above point: this may be the only time someone could just walk up and stab him. A dead Herald isn't necessarily as useful as a live one. Nale is certainly doing more for Odium than his corpse would. Raysium is dangerous, period, not just dangerous to Heralds. The immortality of the Singers is one of their key advantages in the cycle of Desolations, but a soldier with a Raysium dagger could kill them off permanently. And, as above, the Heralds were/are very good fighters-- equipping Taln with a Raysium dagger for even just one Desolation could easily lead to hundreds, if not thousands, of immortal Singer troops being permanently removed from the war, taking all of their knowledge, skill, and experience with them without any replacement. That makes general deployment of Raysium weapons during the previous Desolations incredibly dangerous to Odium and company; conceivably it could have been enough to permanently weaken those events, upending the spiral by which humanity was harder-pressed by each subsequent Desolation as they lost technology and numbers while the Singers remained unweakened. Finally, the implications of what the Raysium dagger did to Raboniel, Essu, Jezrien, and Kalak go way, way beyond killing immortal pawns/associates of Shards; it might be something which could threaten a Shard, or seriously dilute their ability to influence people and events. It may not be possible (for a variety of reasons) for Shards to prevent mortals from using their essences once those Shards have Invested themselves in a place, but I could imagine Rayse not really wanting mortals to have regular access to his godmetal. Even if the bonds placed upon him by the Oathpact allowed him to pursue killing the Heralds so directly as guiding his followers to Raysium weapons, with the end of freeing him from Roshar, the long-term consequences of mortals having that knowledge and the material might have been very unfavorable for him. Maybe not! But we know from the Stormfather that Odium didn't really fret between being freed now or later, so why risk more than he needed to just to avoid waiting? Edited February 3 by Returned 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
listerfeend Posted February 3 Author Report Share Posted February 3 (edited) Quote Raysium doesn't seem common, so getting one of the few weapons made of the metal (and correctly) might not be a small feat. There may not have been even the possibility of equipping soldiers with them in general. We don't know how hard it was to get the materials for even just the one dagger. This doesn't take into account that Odium is apparently in direct charge of his forces. He tells them what to do, and when to do it. You're telling me that the guy who is actually leading the battles, and is the SOURCE of the metal required to do this, can't get his hands on some, or tell them how to get it? 6 hours ago, Returned said: Killing a Herald in any way was not easy for most of their existences. Some of them tended to die in battle during Desolations, but that's a far cry from getting a Raysium dagger into the hands of someone who could actually find a Herald on the battlefield and strike them down with it. It's a near certainty that the vast, vast majority of individuals who fought Heralds died because they were incredibly formidable-- access to tons of magic fueled directly by Honor, millennia of combat experience, etc. Even in the depths of his madness, Taln is astute enough to snatch darts out of the air. So you need a lucky soldier who happens to also already have such a weapon to survive the fight long enough to deal the killing blow, and the odds don't seem favorable for that. They literally died every Desolation though. And Odium has 1000's of disposable, reincarnating troops. They have enough Raysium that the Shanay-im can now incorporate this into their weaponry. He just got access to that now? That seems improbable at best. And again, lots of chances to retry, lots of chances for Rayse to make more of his own metal. Lots of things going on there. 6 hours ago, Returned said: The specific level of debilitation we see with Jezrien was due in large part to a more recent development (widely believed to be related to what happened to Ba Ado Mishram), and even then it's only Jezrien who lies down drunk and helpless. That doesn't impact how the Raysium dagger interacts with them, but is similar to the above point: this may be the only time someone could just walk up and stab him. Even more opportunities for assassination than death on battle field. We know Odium has had humans on his side in the Desolations in the past. 6 hours ago, Returned said: A dead Herald isn't necessarily as useful as a live one. Nale is certainly doing more for Odium than his corpse would. 10 Dead Heralds is worth Odiums freedom to continue his plans...He doesn't need the Heralds to fight for him, he needs them out of his way. Once the Heralds are dead, the Desolation will never stop, and there is no way for humanity to stand against infinite respawn. 6 hours ago, Returned said: Raysium is dangerous, period, not just dangerous to Heralds. The immortality of the Singers is one of their key advantages in the cycle of Desolations, but a soldier with a Raysium dagger could kill them off permanently. And, as above, the Heralds were/are very good fighters-- equipping Taln with a Raysium dagger for even just one Desolation could easily lead to hundreds, if not thousands, of immortal Singer troops being permanently removed from the war, taking all of their knowledge, skill, and experience with them without any replacement. That makes general deployment of Raysium weapons during the previous Desolations incredibly dangerous to Odium and company; conceivably it could have been enough to permanently weaken those events, upending the spiral by which humanity was harder-pressed by each subsequent Desolation as they lost technology and numbers while the Singers remained unweakened. This is a fair enough point, though I don't think the risks outweigh the benefits here, personally. Still, Taln with a dagger would probably be a pretty dangerous foe, though, I don't think they quite work that way right? He'd have to fit a new gemstone to the dagger every time he killed one, wouldn't he? That would greatly limit its effectiveness in battle, and still favors the Fused more than the Heralds. 6 hours ago, Returned said: Finally, the implications of what the Raysium dagger did to Raboniel, Essu, Jezrien, and Kalak go way, way beyond killing immortal pawns/associates of Shards; it might be something which could threaten a Shard, or seriously dilute their ability to influence people and events. It may not be possible (for a variety of reasons) for Shards to prevent mortals from using their essences once those Shards have Invested themselves in a place, but I could imagine Rayse not really wanting mortals to have regular access to his godmetal. Even if the bonds placed upon him by the Oathpact allowed him to pursue killing the Heralds so directly as guiding his followers to Raysium weapons, with the end of freeing him from Roshar, the long-term consequences of mortals having that knowledge and the material might have been very unfavorable for him. Maybe not! But we know from the Stormfather that Odium didn't really fret between being freed now or later, so why risk more than he needed to just to avoid waiting? This is HIS metal. If he's not trapped, how can he NOT control who has access to it? I admit we don't have a lot of detail on what control Shards do have over the creation of their metals, or their control over them, but I have to assume that they can at least do what Preservation did to Ruin and make it grow somewhere completely inaccessible by conventional means. Or, in my opinion more likely, make it manifest somewhere no one will ever find or know about it. Or not at all, potentially. It's important to note that I'm ok with this being "So the story can happen". It's literally probably just "Well, Honor enforced some boundary against that while he was alive." And that's totally fine. However, I still think it strains reason for Odium to not have figured this out eons ago, and had the Fused start doing drawing up plans. 8 hours ago, alder24 said: 10 hours ago, listerfeend said: Ok, so in Oathbringer, as we know, Moash is able to permanently kill a Herald using a Rasyium dagger with a gem in the pommel. Fair enough, very interesting. However, this seems to completely destroy the entire Desolation/Return to Braize cycle that has been going on. This was a "recent" discovery. It was made by Radiants, who trapped Mishram in the gemstone during the False Desolation and that's when Fused became aware that you can trap spren and Cognitive Shadows into a gemstone as well. They didn't even know spren can be trapped in gemstones before that. RoW ch 84: Quote “We’ve used this metal for several Returns to drain Stormlight from Radiants,” Raboniel said. “It conducts Investiture, drawing it from a source and pulling it inward. We used it to fill gemstones, but didn’t realize until the fall of Ba-Ado-Mishram that capturing spren in gemstones was possible. It was then that one of us—She Who Dreams—realized it might be possible to trap a Herald’s soul in the same way.” I know it is a recent discovery, I'm saying it stretches credibility that it is so recent. Odium is stuck, right? He wants out. I know that time isn't a factor to him or whatever, but obviously he wants out as quickly as he can be. We've been told by Brandon that Shards have the ability to instantaneously get any information they need, but they have to search for it and find it in a format that they can parse. He also said that they get a general brain blast of information about things like Investiture, Realmatics, etc... If they've been using those weapons for several Returns to drain Stormlight, Odium should INSTANTLY be able to make the connection to what the Heralds are, and how that would work. That's just the way of these things. Now that it's been explained to us, it's a pretty logical conclusion. They are essentially CR's, which means they are basically just Investiture, like everything else, and Raysium draws conducts Investiture. Rayse would have been able to put all that together, along with the fact that they wouldn't be held by the gem, and they would die, thus essentially making the Oathpact completely impossible to fulfill, turning on the infinite respawn cheat. 8 hours ago, alder24 said: This WoB tells you that they aren't not omniscient, they don't know everything. While the power knows a lot, Vessels aren't aware of all that knowledge. Vessel's mind isn't infinite, it can't comprehend infinity. Vessels have to first think about it and then they become aware, or they would have to find this information somewhere else. Rayse would need to first think about the possibility of using gemstones to trap Heralds to know it's even possible. And if he had never thought about trapping them because he didn't know they could be trapped like that, then he would have never known it's possible. Hide contents Questioner When somebody takes up a Shard, do they inherently get knowledge when they get that Shard? For example, does Taravangian know about hemalurgy, now, just because he took up a Shard? Or was that just Ruin's...? Brandon Sanderson Excellent question. Taking up a Shard is going to impart a large amount of knowledge, more than even a Shard can process immediately, and it will take some time. And it's going to give you the ability to access a lot of other kinds of knowledge. Shards aren't omnipresent, but they kind of are; they are able to do many things at once, they are able to focus on places and be aware of that location in a lot of instances. But at the same time, they are limited in their ability to... they don't know everything. They might be able to get access to most things, but it takes conscious... like, "I need to know this. I need to find it out. It happens it's written in a book that I can just... it's on this other planet, and I absorb it and immediately know." Assuming it's not written in a way that you can't access, which certain formats make it hard to do. So, Taravangian, if he cared to think about what hemalurgy is, it's well enough known that he could be like, "I wonder if there's a way to steal... Oh, it's this. This is how it works on this planet." That would be an almost instantaneous thing for him to be able to learn, if he wanted to. But does he hold it in his head right now? That remains to be seen. Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023) Very true, but doesn't change the fact that Odium would understand the Investiture aspects of everything pretty much intrinsically through the Shard, and would know intimately what his own metal does. Even if he didn't, he'd have access to the information on ONE of the planets out there, and would have cause to go searching for it, which the WoB I posted indicates would lead him pretty much directly to the info he needs. 8 hours ago, alder24 said: It's not a perfect or satisfying explanation, but it's probably how Brandon would explain all questions like "why Shard X didn't tell Y to his servants earlier." Sometimes we have to suspend our disbelief and simply enjoy the story, otherwise there would be no story to tell. I suspect this is truly the answer. Edited February 3 by listerfeend 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 3 Report Share Posted February 3 7 hours ago, listerfeend said: This doesn't take into account that Odium is apparently in direct charge of his forces. He tells them what to do, and when to do it. You're telling me that the guy who is actually leading the battles, and is the SOURCE of the metal required to do this, can't get his hands on some, or tell them how to get it? Odium only recently decided to get fully invested in Roshar, before he tried to avoid it as much as possible to avoid being tied to Roshar and be able to leave. He had to invest in recent centuries fully. That's the reason why he wouldn't want to just create Raysium for his Fused, if that was even allowed by Honor's restrictions placed upon him (which are separate from the Oathpact). If not created then they had to find it from natural sources, but this is a very slow process, manifesting in dangerous or even inaccessible areas, possibly even on Braize. Getting Raysium directly from the surface of Braize would explain why it's such a rare metal - Braize barely hold any atmosphere, it's a deadly place even to Fused. And that doesn't even take into consideration the quantity that could be manifested - it could be a relatively small amount of Raisum manifesting naturally because Odium wasn’t very invested in Roshar. Spoiler Questioner When one of the shards, like Odium, move from world to world in the cosmere, does their presence, like the metals they leave behind and their magic, leave with them? Brandon Sanderson Odium never really settled on a planet. He is now settled on Roshar and his magic has permeated things. Leaving would be very difficult for him. It would either involve leaving behind some of his power or ripping that out, which would be a difficult process. So yes it is very tough to leave. Phoenix Comicon 2013 (May 24, 2013) Spoiler BlackYeti Can I ask you about the body of a Shard in the Physical Realm? About the different states of matter. What determines the state of matter that they are in? Because I've been reading the bits very carefully, and I haven't noticed much in terms of temperature difference. Brandon Sanderson The idea for me working on this was that they transcend-- They permeate everything, right? They permeate all life on all the Realms. And that there are manifestations of them that leak out, and it's kind of like they make-- they appear there in the various states but-- When you say that you've got the gas, you've got the liquid, you've got the solid: but you've also got inside of you, and inside of that plant, and like-- they're everywhere. And so what determines it? In my head it's just like when some of that power permeates, some of it distills, just like water. There's some water in the air, there's some that freezes: that's temperature. But it's not always temperature whether it's in the air, or whether it's falling. Imagine a Spiritual version of humidity, that is influenced by what's happening on the Spiritual Realm and the Cognitive, and that's what you'll get. Manchester signing (Aug. 6, 2014) 8 hours ago, listerfeend said: They literally died every Desolation though. No they didn't. They often survived Deoslations, like during Aharietiam. Heralds are really tough to kill and if you have only a tiny bit of Raysium at your disposal, you can't afford to rely on a random chance. 8 hours ago, listerfeend said: They have enough Raysium that the Shanay-im can now incorporate this into their weaponry. He just got access to that now? That seems improbable at best. And again, lots of chances to retry, lots of chances for Rayse to make more of his own metal. Lots of things going on there. Raysium is very rare and very hard to get. They have barely enough to make only a few weapons for a selected few Heavenly Ones, not every Fused. And Fused used Raysium only for "a few Returns" not every Return (earlier quote). RoW ch 84: Quote “It would work,” Raboniel said. “But it isn’t terribly practical. Raysium is exceptionally difficult to obtain.” 8 hours ago, listerfeend said: Even more opportunities for assassination than death on battle field. We know Odium has had humans on his side in the Desolations in the past. But it's the very opposite - only recently Heralds became overcome by their madness and dropped their guard. It would be impossible to assassinate them during Desolation, when they were still more or less mentally stable and determinate - Taln in WoR proved this. Heralds are insanely good fighters. 8 hours ago, listerfeend said: 10 Dead Heralds is worth Odiums freedom to continue his plans...He doesn't need the Heralds to fight for him, he needs them out of his way. Once the Heralds are dead, the Desolation will never stop, and there is no way for humanity to stand against infinite respawn. Firstly, Fused didn't know Heralds will die in a gemstone, they've expected them to last just like spren, Secondly Honor was still alive and he and Cultivation were still able to counter Odium's plans and come up with another solution, to seal Fused again. Lastly, killing Heralds isn't a solution for Odium to be free of Honor's restraints - he needed Honor to free him directly and Honor would never do that. Sure it's better without the Oathpact, but that isn't a permanent change. 8 hours ago, listerfeend said: This is a fair enough point, though I don't think the risks outweigh the benefits here, personally. Still, Taln with a dagger would probably be a pretty dangerous foe, though, I don't think they quite work that way right? He'd have to fit a new gemstone to the dagger every time he killed one, wouldn't he? That would greatly limit its effectiveness in battle, and still favors the Fused more than the Heralds. A large gemstone would probably fit dozens or hundreds of Fused at once, like a King's Drop. And once they would realize that Fused fades in gemstones over weeks they wouldn't need that many of them anyway. 8 hours ago, listerfeend said: This is HIS metal. If he's not trapped, how can he NOT control who has access to it? I admit we don't have a lot of detail on what control Shards do have over the creation of their metals, or their control over them, but I have to assume that they can at least do what Preservation did to Ruin and make it grow somewhere completely inaccessible by conventional means. Or, in my opinion more likely, make it manifest somewhere no one will ever find or know about it. Or not at all, potentially. It doesn't work like that. Odium IS trapped and restricted. Shards can't prevent people from accessing and using their investiture. God metals are the result of the presence of a Shard in a system, of Shardic investiture permeating the system and leaking in random places manifesting in a physical form. Shards don't control that, sure they can invest more in the system and create god metals if they need it (Honorblades) but that is a big commitment for Odium, which he wasn;t willing to take. Moreover the fact that there are tens of thousands of spren present on Roshar might mitigate this pressure and provide a relief valve so far less solid investiture would manifest. And there is also a fact that Odium avoided investing into Roshar as much as possible, his essence only recently begun to being a part of Roshar. Getting Raysium during previous Desolation would be even more problematic than now. Mistborn spoilers: Spoiler Ruin had no control over Atium, even Preservation had no control over Lerasium once it's in the Physical Realm. Preservation Splintered Ruin and trapped that investiture in the cycle of Atium in the Pits. It takes around 300 years for investiture to cycle back into the Pits - a long time. Spoiler Lance Alvein (paraphrased) You've said that "The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin's body that he had stolen away". How does one Shard steal a portion of another Shard and create a Physical outlet for it, like the Pits were for Ruin's power? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) It has to do with clash between the two Shards' power. When pressed, he then said that it was "kind of" like splintering Hal-Con 2012 (Oct. 30, 2012) 8 hours ago, listerfeend said: I know it is a recent discovery, I'm saying it stretches credibility that it is so recent. Odium is stuck, right? He wants out. I know that time isn't a factor to him or whatever, but obviously he wants out as quickly as he can be. We've been told by Brandon that Shards have the ability to instantaneously get any information they need, but they have to search for it and find it in a format that they can parse. He also said that they get a general brain blast of information about things like Investiture, Realmatics, etc... If they've been using those weapons for several Returns to drain Stormlight, Odium should INSTANTLY be able to make the connection to what the Heralds are, and how that would work. That's just the way of these things. Now that it's been explained to us, it's a pretty logical conclusion. They are essentially CR's, which means they are basically just Investiture, like everything else, and Raysium draws conducts Investiture. Rayse would have been able to put all that together, along with the fact that they wouldn't be held by the gem, and they would die, thus essentially making the Oathpact completely impossible to fulfill, turning on the infinite respawn cheat. That's not true. The difference between Stormlight (raw, static investiture in a physical, gaseous form) and a soul (spiritual investiture, keyed to the identity of an individual, not physical in any way) is big. Those things are not the same. Stormlight is static investiture, a soul isn't even fully innate investiture (innate investiture is only a part of a soul), it's something else entirely. A soul is not even pure investiture, it's also a bunch of Connections and Identity. Affecting things that are tied to a body, keyed by Identity, is generally hard in Cosmere. It's not as intuitive as you think. Draining Stormlight is not the same as draining souls, those things are very different. Investiture is not equal to investiture, there are different types of investiture and different magics and objects interact differently with different types of investiture - there is static investiture, kinetic investiture, innate investiture - a soul (or rahter we should say a spirit web) is something else entirely, it contains a bit of innate investiture, but innate investiture doesn't make all of the investiture in the soul. For example Returned can sense innate investiture only, but not souls (drabs have souls too), while Seekers can sense only kinetic investiture, not static or innate. They didn't even know it's possible to trap spren in a gemstone, it's impossible for them to make this leap and trap Heralds in gemstones if they didn't even know you can do that with spren. Knowing that Raysium conducts static and kinetic investiture (but it never harmed innate investiture when used by Fused in combat) doesn't leap into trapping souls in a gemstone, which would make them fade - both of which they didn't know about. It's also possible that as long as Honor was alive he would provide enough connection to SR to prevent Heralds from fading even in a gemstone. And that means they would eventually get out and restart Oathpact. 8 hours ago, listerfeend said: Very true, but doesn't change the fact that Odium would understand the Investiture aspects of everything pretty much intrinsically through the Shard, and would know intimately what his own metal does. Even if he didn't, he'd have access to the information on ONE of the planets out there, and would have cause to go searching for it, which the WoB I posted indicates would lead him pretty much directly to the info he needs. You mean someone in Cosmere had access to Raysium and studied it enough to know and write that it can trap souls in a gemstone? Nope. The fact that Odium didn't know about this means it's not as easy as you think so. Even if he knew souls can be conducted via gemstones doesn't mean that he would realize that souls can be trapped in a gemstone - and that's the main thing they were missing before imprisonment of BAM showed them it's even possible. This clearly shows us that Odium lacked knowledge about one of those two steps, or both of them. Conscious effort is required and if he'd never bothered searching for different possible ways of ending Desolations, different ways of dealing with Heralds, different ways of using Raysium and finally ways to trap Heralds in a gemstone (which is very specific), he would have never known it's possible. That's a lot of steps to get the answer and it requires him to know some things are possible - like using gemstones to hold souls, which he didn't know. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Returned Posted February 3 Report Share Posted February 3 (edited) 23 hours ago, listerfeend said: It's important to note that I'm ok with this being "So the story can happen". It's literally probably just "Well, Honor enforced some boundary against that while he was alive." And that's totally fine. However, I still think it strains reason for Odium to not have figured this out eons ago, and had the Fused start doing drawing up plans. Since I'm arguing against this position it's worth pointing out that this is 100% a possibility. However, it seems that even more than being OK with it you have committed to this being the case. If so, I don't think that anything short of a WoB is going to satisfy you or shift your opinion, which of course is fine. But if it leads you to reject any theorycrafting in another direction (which is also fine), then it'll be off-topic to discuss in that direction. We can talk about possibilities, and whether you find them persuasive or not some will at least provide for not being 100% certain that it's a plot kludge. At some point we have to admit that every explanation is that, since the magic and its properties are all made up which means that all of it is arbitrary. Honest question: are you interested in discussing possible alternatives, or are you more wanting to vent annoyance? I don't want to waste anyone's time or your attention and patience if the latter. In the meantime, I have some responses to your rebuttals which I have tried to group to keep quote formatting under control (please let me know if this wasn't helpful, or if my groupings have distorted some of your positions in ways that inhibit discussion): 1. Odium Controls His Metal Absolutely, At All Times and in All Circumstances 23 hours ago, listerfeend said: This doesn't take into account that Odium is apparently in direct charge of his forces. He tells them what to do, and when to do it. You're telling me that the guy who is actually leading the battles, and is the SOURCE of the metal required to do this, can't get his hands on some, or tell them how to get it? ... This is HIS metal. If he's not trapped, how can he NOT control who has access to it? I admit we don't have a lot of detail on what control Shards do have over the creation of their metals, or their control over them, but I have to assume that they can at least do what Preservation did to Ruin and make it grow somewhere completely inaccessible by conventional means. Or, in my opinion more likely, make it manifest somewhere no one will ever find or know about it. Or not at all, potentially. We don't have much evidence that Odium personally directs his forces outside of the current Desolation, but your point is well-taken. If Odium wants his forces to have some Raysium, he could probably make it happen. I'll come back to the "if" in a subsequent point. But this does not at all address how much Raysium there is on Roshar, nor how easy it is to get. How much Lerasium was on Scadrial? Not very much, perhaps not even enough to make a weapon by the time Vin is on the scene. And even less after Elend and Hoid. Similarly, Leras didn't have the ability to control who used it. Ati is an even better example: even after being freed from Preservation's prison, he very specifically couldn't control where atium was, how much of it there was, nor who had access to it, nor how they used it. He never knew where it was at all. That's the final plot arc, climax, and denouement of Mistborn era 1. Additionally, Rayse is trapped, physically and operationally, via details we don't know much about. If there are only three beads of Raysium left (a randomly chosen number) a dagger might not even be the best use for them, though if Raboniel has made one already then maybe there's no reason not to use it. We don't know enough about how godmetals are manifested to know one way or the other whether or not Rayse could have produced more of it, easily or otherwise. Perhaps you are not convinced, but I find the example of Ati to be completely satisfying in addressing these points: there is no reason to believe that a Shard necessarily has this degree of direct control over their godmetals. We have in-text evidence as iron-clad as possible that indicate limits which obviates these particular rebuttals. Summary: the arguments you advance for how much direct knowledge of and control over their godmetal a Shard has are specifically contravened in-text in the Cosmere. Further, there is no evidence to suggest that Raysium is common and some evidence to suggest that it is quite rare. 2. Heralds Are Easy and Desirable to Kill 23 hours ago, listerfeend said: They literally died every Desolation though. And Odium has 1000's of disposable, reincarnating troops. They have enough Raysium that the Shanay-im can now incorporate this into their weaponry. He just got access to that now? That seems improbable at best. And again, lots of chances to retry, lots of chances for Rayse to make more of his own metal. Lots of things going on there. ... Even more opportunities for assassination than death on battle field. We know Odium has had humans on his side in the Desolations in the past. ... 10 Dead Heralds is worth Odiums freedom to continue his plans...He doesn't need the Heralds to fight for him, he needs them out of his way. Once the Heralds are dead, the Desolation will never stop, and there is no way for humanity to stand against infinite respawn. The first point, that they died every Desolation, is specifically incorrect. We know from Kalak's description in the prologue of WoK that some of them at least sometimes survived, though they had to return to Braize once the Desolation was finished even so. I'll disagree that the troops are disposable once Raysium weapons are on the field, a point which I will address more precisely below. The "lots of chances to retry" characterizes Odium's entire approach to the struggle on Roshar, again as the Stormfather said. Time is dross to him, and his access to unlimited attempts over eternity might well discourage him from doing something which would alter the state of play (another point which I will discuss below). Given that he didn't make the attempts you describe it's at least as possible that there are reasons for that decision as it is that it's bad plotting. As for the ease of killing Heralds, you've not addressed that this is not easily accomplished. As in the example I gave of Taln snatching poisoned darts out of the air despite barely being aware of his surroundings, why would "humans on his side" suggest humans capable of killing Heralds with little difficulty? Iyatil is presented as being very capable and lethal, and her assassination attempt failed utterly. Did Rayse have a huge supply of superior assassins? Maybe, but I see no reason to think so. And, as in my previous post, the Herald needs to be killed by a Raysium weapon for them to be ripped from the Oathpact. It's not enough for them to die. So unless you can demonstrate that there is a lot of Raysium around (which you cannot, unless you have held back some evidence so far), and that the Raysium weapons would not have other, destabilizing effects on the conflict (all speculative on my part), I think that you are way overselling how easy this would be to accomplish. I didn't mean to imply that Rayse needed the Heralds on his side for anything, only to point out that killing them isn't necessaraily the only thing he could do with them. We don't even know that the Oathpact would have allowed for the Raysium killing method in the first place. We know that the damage the Heralds did to the Oathpact changed the game in some fundamental ways, and it's not impossible to believe that this is one of them. That doesn't make it true, obviously, but again, it should be enough to chip away at the certainty that the situation is bad plotting, if that's something a reader is open to. Summary: Heralds have not been easy to kill by any means (with one glaring, recent exception, addressed in my previous post). Making sure that they are killed by a specific, rare weapon is hard to do even if there were no additional risks in making such an attempt. 3. Raysium Weapons Have Acceptable Risk of Unintended, Worldly Consequences 23 hours ago, listerfeend said: This is a fair enough point, though I don't think the risks outweigh the benefits here, personally. Still, Taln with a dagger would probably be a pretty dangerous foe, though, I don't think they quite work that way right? He'd have to fit a new gemstone to the dagger every time he killed one, wouldn't he? That would greatly limit its effectiveness in battle, and still favors the Fused more than the Heralds. Gemstones aren't exactly hard to come by on Roshar, even if that's exactly how it works (one gemstone for one killing-- wasn't the same gemstone used for Essu and Raboniel both? I don't recall the specifics, maybe someone here can clarify, but I'd thought it was the Light in the gemstones that mattered, while Raysium was necessary for the weapon to deliver it correctly). Gemstones are used as currency by even the poorest! It seems to me that if you want to handwave away the availability of Raysium then the availability of gemstones would be beyond trivial. And the requisite Light isn't at all hard to make, once you know how. If the Heralds kill many Fused each (which seems like it must be true, given how Desolations played out) then we run into some real problems with the "disposable, reincarnating troops" you mentioned above. If they don't reincarnate then they aren't disposable, and the Fused are the way that Singers regained ancient knowledge and technology much like how the Heralds brought the same to humans. Particularly as the humans won each Desolation, and had time to rebuild in between them. The increasing frequency of Desolations was the major thing that offset this, leading to Aharietiam being the worst one of all (in Kalak's telling). I don't recall a reliable estimate of how many Fused souls exist, but losing a few hundred to a few thousand each Desolation might well have put an unrecoverable dent in their forces after a couple of cycles. Summary: by the numbers, the Heralds must be much better at killing Fused than the Fused are at killing Heralds. Putting weapons into play which permanently kill immortal combatants puts at risk the only advantage that Odium's forces had in ways from which they could not recover. 4. Rayse's Goals Are Urgent and Not Frustrated by Investing Himself as Raysium But even beyond the possibilty above, we don't have a solid grasp of what implications Raysium's properties have in the Cosmere. The metal may be largely irrelevant, or it might be impossibly dangerous even to Shards. We just don't know. Something we do know is that Shards haven't been very forthcoming about godmetals and associated technologies. Sazed certainly hasn't been. My broader point is one which you gloss over: Odium doesn't care so much about getting free right now that he takes certain risks, because time is meaningless to him-- this is stated directly by the Stormfather in relation to the potential for Odium being hurt. As described, there is no meaningful difference to him between Odium getting his way now or later, while Rayse was very concerned with risks to himself. That's the very reason the contest of champions appealed to him in the first place. In that frame the distinction is not between now or later, but between more risk and less. If Raysium weapons present more than zero risk to him or his plans, then waiting may be preferable to him. This preference is specifically stated in the text. Rayse did not have urgency as the driver of his schemes, and so arguments which appeal mostly or entirely to speed are specifically off-target. We also know that there is a relationship between godmetals and the capacities of Shards, including their being bound to planets. Being more Invested in a place makes it harder for a Shard to leave. If incarnating more Raysium on Roshar means Investing himself more heavily there, and his goal is to be able to leave, more Raysium might be self-defeating. And we know that Rayse's plans involved travelling the Cosmere and taking out other Shards, so being bound to Roshar by any mechanism is going to be problematic. The issues and considerations go far beyond winning the Desolations. More Investment in a planet via incarnating as godmetals has other implications for a Shard as well, including limiting how much of their power is available to them to use. Ati came to a bad end because of how much of his power was Invested as atium: he could not marshall his divine power to destroy Scadrial all at once, as he desired, because too much of his power was Invested as the godmetal. This very fact was exploited by Elend and his atium Mistings to directly defeat Ati's plans even while Ruin was directly, actively opposing them more forcefully than Odium ever did to the Rosharans. Summary: the true risks Raysium presents in the Cosmere are unknown but may be substantial; what we've seen of it so far is significant. Getting off of Roshar sooner rather than later might have appealed to Rayse but the timing was subordinated to other concerns. And even if there were no particular risks to abundant and widely-known Raysium, and rapidly achieving his goals were important to Rayse, causing enough Raysium to incarnate to achieve that speed undermines that very goal (to at least some degree, we still don't have a lot of detail here). So, summing up altogether, I don't find the arguments you've presented for why Raysium weapons just have to have been possible and desirable in these dimensions to be very tight. While some are stronger than others (always the case with arguments), it takes some motivation to assume that bad writing is the only possible or acceptable explanation for that fundamental position. Someone who is interested in thinking that there are other explanations consistent with information we have will find ample reason to continue thinking so, and will not be ignoring much evidence to the contrary. Edited February 4 by Returned 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 3 Report Share Posted February 3 25 minutes ago, Returned said: Gemstones aren't exactly hard to come by on Roshar, even if that's exactly how it works (one gemstone for one killing-- wasn't the same gemstone used for Essu and Raboniel both? I don't recall the specifics, maybe someone here can clarify, but I'd thought it was the Light in the gemstones that mattered, while Raysium was necessary for the weapon to deliver it correctly) It was the same dagger with the same gemstone, but it was filled with anti-Voidlight, so they weren't meant to hold a soul. The anti-light was injected into Fused, so in this case the gemstone doesn't matter. I also add that it's very likely that Heralds souls trapped before Aharietriam would not fade into the Beyond. Kalak specified two main reasons for why this happened to Jezrien - breaking of the Oathpact and Honor's death. If Oathpact was still strong and binding and Honor was still alive, then Heralds might have been able to be trapped in a gemstone indefinitely, which is something Fused thought would happen to Jez when they trapped him. It's somewhat possible that capturing all Heralds in gemstones would actually make Fused situation much worse because they might have been forced to remain on Braize with no Herald for them to torture. RoW ch 93: Quote "I felt it happen to Jezrien. You think you captured him, but our god is Splintered, our Oathpact severed. He faded over the weeks, and is gone now. Beyond your touch at long last." 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
listerfeend Posted February 5 Author Report Share Posted February 5 (edited) On 2/3/2024 at 3:00 PM, Returned said: Honest question: are you interested in discussing possible alternatives, or are you more wanting to vent annoyance? I don't want to waste anyone's time or your attention and patience if the latter. In the meantime, I have some responses to your rebuttals which I have tried to group to keep quote formatting under control (please let me know if this wasn't helpful, or if my groupings have distorted some of your positions in ways that inhibit discussion): I am always open to discussing possibilities and want everyone's opinions on this. I'm not trying to come across as super negative, and if that has been the case, that hasn't been intentional. On 2/3/2024 at 3:00 PM, Returned said: We don't have much evidence that Odium personally directs his forces outside of the current Desolation, but your point is well-taken. If Odium wants his forces to have some Raysium, he could probably make it happen. I'll come back to the "if" in a subsequent point. But this does not at all address how much Raysium there is on Roshar, nor how easy it is to get. How much Lerasium was on Scadrial? Not very much, perhaps not even enough to make a weapon by the time Vin is on the scene. And even less after Elend and Hoid. Similarly, Leras didn't have the ability to control who used it. Ati is an even better example: even after being freed from Preservation's prison, he very specifically couldn't control where atium was, how much of it there was, nor who had access to it, nor how they used it. He never knew where it was at all. That's the final plot arc, climax, and denouement of Mistborn era 1. Ok, so, that's fair enough, I've essentially been operating under the assumption that this Desolation we are seeing is representative of the Desolations there were in the past, with Odium essentially at the helm, utilizing the Fused as his pieces on the board. Perhaps this is not the way it was done in the past, but I suspect that this is at least similar to what was done in the past. Regarding Lerasium and Atium, I don't know how much Lerasium comes into it. The crux of all this is essentially that though: How much do they get to control? That's honestly the crux of all of my confusion regarding most Shardic things. Ati was producing a TON (in relation to Lerasium at least, and any other God Metal we know of) of Atium/Electrum, but that was somehow related to how Leras trapped him. He specifically forced his Perpendicularity to be under the pits. Perhaps the fact that Ruin had no physical representation of his Investiture on Scadrial is why there was so much created. Leras had both the Mists as well as the Well of Ascension, two hyper concentrated forms of his own Investiture, thus, less God metal created. Ruin was the opposite. But, as you say, we have no idea what the availability of Raysium, but we do know that it would be within Sazed's power to create more Lerasium, as such it should follow that Rayse could create more Raysium. Quote Questioner Could [Sazed] also bring back lerasium beads, if he wanted to? Brandon Sanderson It would be within his power to do so, yes. Firefight Miami signing (Jan. 8, 2015) Now, we have no idea if Honor did something similar to Odium as Pres did to Ruin. I suspect it's something different, due to the fact that we know Odium has resisted, as much as he can, Investing in a system, which would make it difficult for a Perpendicularity to appear. This could also mean that he doesn't have a place to create a bunch of Raysium, so there is that. On 2/3/2024 at 3:00 PM, Returned said: Summary: Heralds have not been easy to kill by any means (with one glaring, recent exception, addressed in my previous post). Making sure that they are killed by a specific, rare weapon is hard to do even if there were no additional risks in making such an attempt. I'm not saying that it's easy, by any means. Just that there are many opportunities. An assassination attempt might be easier, since the Heralds wouldn't necessarily be on the highest of alert at that moment. They are very capable fighters, definitely, but you really only need one success. They have to win every time. Heralds have still been killed in every desolation. IF Raysium can be generated by Odium and given to his soldiers in any way (we see the Shanay-im have been incorporating it into their weapons for at least "several returns", and the gemstone thing was only recently discovered. That's the part I take issue with the most. And, so far, there hasn't been anything said that would refute that Odium definitely should have known a lot of this information. Been able to access it from somewhere. He doesn't even need to know super specific details. "I NEED a way to get rid of the Heralds, how do I do that...? Oh yes, I see, they are CS's now...their existence is pure Investiture... We can store Investiture in a gemstone..." etc... On 2/3/2024 at 3:42 PM, alder24 said: It's somewhat possible that capturing all Heralds in gemstones would actually make Fused situation much worse because they might have been forced to remain on Braize with no Herald for them to torture. Even if Honor's death is what makes it so that Jezrien super actually died, trapping them in a gemstone (this is conjecture on my part, and if it's not true would completely make all of my points moot) while they are on Roshar should leave the Respawn point open for the Fused, right? That would be my expectation. If the Heralds are not returned to Braize, then the Fuzed can get to Roshar, that's sort of my understanding, anyway. It's safe enough to assume that trapping a single Herald was beneficial to the Fused in some way, or at the very least to Odium's plans, since he sent Moash/Vyre to do the deed in the first place. It doesn't take much to assume that if trapping one is beneficial, trapping the others would be as well? On 2/3/2024 at 3:00 PM, Returned said: Gemstones aren't exactly hard to come by on Roshar, even if that's exactly how it works (one gemstone for one killing-- wasn't the same gemstone used for Essu and Raboniel both? I don't recall the specifics, maybe someone here can clarify, but I'd thought it was the Light in the gemstones that mattered, while Raysium was necessary for the weapon to deliver it correctly). Gemstones are used as currency by even the poorest! It seems to me that if you want to handwave away the availability of Raysium then the availability of gemstones would be beyond trivial. And the requisite Light isn't at all hard to make, once you know how. My point wasn't that gemstones are rare, obviously they are not. My point was that, mid battle, fiddling around with a gemstone attached in a very specific way to the pommel of your weapon to try to replace that would make it a single use weapon. There is no way you are going to swap that out mid fight. If you are correct and they could re-use the same gemstone, this isn't an issue at all. (I may be remembering that wrong, or making assumptions that aren't supported in text here.) Especially if we are operating under the assumption that, pre-death of Honor, they would be trapped instead of dead. I would assume putting more than one Herald in a gem would be much like trying to store a memory in someone else's coppermind, not possible, since it is basically keyed, or full in the case of the gemstone. On 2/3/2024 at 3:00 PM, Returned said: Summary: the true risks Raysium presents in the Cosmere are unknown but may be substantial; what we've seen of it so far is significant. Getting off of Roshar sooner rather than later might have appealed to Rayse but the timing was subordinated to other concerns. And even if there were no particular risks to abundant and widely-known Raysium, and rapidly achieving his goals were important to Rayse, causing enough Raysium to incarnate to achieve that speed undermines that very goal (to at least some degree, we still don't have a lot of detail here). This is basically the handwaving part, to me. It's possible that he didn't want to do this in the beginning, I fully accept that. He was trying not to get invested. However, again, the Fused have been using Raysium on their weapons for the "past several Returns" which kind of means that he's made enough for them to use it in battle, at least for the Shanay-im (Heavenly ones, I may be spelling that wrong). Which kind of directly refutes the "the risks to having this on the battlefield outweigh the benefits" point you and others have made. Granted, we don't know how many of these weapons were used, but if they have enough to cover spears in it, they have enough to make daggers like we saw. Even if it is just plating the outside of the spear, that's a LOT of metal, more than enough for a few daggers, vs one spear used by one individual. The fact that their spears are coated in it means that it doesn't really matter what the rest of the dagger is made out of, as far as I can tell, you just need a conduit of the Raysium that leads to the gem. I recognize that it has been stated that he's in no rush to get out of there, but that also sort of goes against his other motivations (not wanting to be Invested, he still wants out to continue his plans, etc..) He's willing to wait as long necessary but he is quite obviously going to take the opportunity to get out as soon as possible. It would make no sense for him to be like "well, I could get free now, but I can wait for another thousand years so I will." On 2/3/2024 at 3:00 PM, Returned said: Summary: by the numbers, the Heralds must be much better at killing Fused than the Fused are at killing Heralds. Putting weapons into play which permanently kill immortal combatants puts at risk the only advantage that Odium's forces had in ways from which they could not recover. This is very fair. Also, I just want to point out, I'm not saying it would be "easy" to kill the Heralds like this, just that it would certainly be possible, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me that Odium wouldn't have known about, at the very least, trapping the Heralds in gemstones. The best explanations for this are definitely that Honor made it not an option before, somehow. Maybe he was able to place restrictions on what Odium was able to provide for the Fused, maybe he put restrictions on how much Raysium could be made (though he was still alive for the "several Returns" that the Heavenly Ones were using Raysium on their spears, so I don't know that that holds up very well). Or it could very well be something like "You can't take the Heralds out like that". On 2/3/2024 at 3:00 PM, Returned said: it takes some motivation to assume that bad writing is the only possible or acceptable explanation for that fundamental position. I think you may misunderstand my point in all of this. I'm not saying it's bad writing. (Yes, I've used memes from Pitch Meetings, but it's really only cuz I thought they were funny, and sort of fit). Literally every story ever written is going to have some things like this, where people do stuff that don't make much sense to us. I have full faith that Brando will make it make sense, but it's basically a year before we get to read the next book, and almost a decade till we get to read the book after that. This is all speculative and basically "but what about"s until we have better information from Brando. I'm not upset about any of this, this doesn't break the world for me. This is me trying to get other people's opinions on why this is just now becoming a thing. And if we all agreed on this, then, well, we wouldn't be having this conversation, and that would make me rather sad actually. I love the fact that we can get this in depth in these conversations! EDIT TO ASK: When they say they have been using Raysium for the past several Returns, do they mean "the past several Returns this Desolation"? Or do they call a Desolation a Return? Now I'm not sure. If they call every time the are respawned a Return, and mean that they have been using Raysium the past few times they have been respawned in the current conflict, everything I've said goes out the window and none of it matters Edited February 5 by listerfeend 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
listerfeend Posted February 5 Author Report Share Posted February 5 (edited) On 2/3/2024 at 9:22 AM, alder24 said: Odium only recently decided to get fully invested in Roshar, before he tried to avoid it as much as possible to avoid being tied to Roshar and be able to leave. He had to invest in recent centuries fully. That's the reason why he wouldn't want to just create Raysium for his Fused, if that was even allowed by Honor's restrictions placed upon him (which are separate from the Oathpact). If not created then they had to find it from natural sources, but this is a very slow process, manifesting in dangerous or even inaccessible areas, possibly even on Braize. Getting Raysium directly from the surface of Braize would explain why it's such a rare metal - Braize barely hold any atmosphere, it's a deadly place even to Fused. And that doesn't even take into consideration the quantity that could be manifested - it could be a relatively small amount of Raisum manifesting naturally because Odium wasn’t very invested in Roshar. Ok, so this tracks well enough. I struggle a bit, still, with the "we've used it for the last several Returns" part. If that means the previous desolations, that means Honor was alive and therefore would have been enforcing any boundaries he placed on Odium, which means they had enough to make at least several spears operate this way. If that means "the past few times we've been respawned this conflict" then everything lines up and that would explain everything very neatly. Also, I'm not sure why he would have recently decided to Invest, I sort of took it more as "he's been trapped so long that he was Investing merely by existing there", which would also explain why there wasn't a ton of Raysium used before, except, again, there is that "several Returns" quote, and that is the one that keeps messing me up. On 2/3/2024 at 9:22 AM, alder24 said: No they didn't. They often survived Deoslations, like during Aharietiam. Heralds are really tough to kill and if you have only a tiny bit of Raysium at your disposal, you can't afford to rely on a random chance. So, how was a Desolation ended then? Only one of them had to die? And they returned back to Braize willingly? I seem to remember that Ahraietiam was special because only one of them died, that being Taln. Maybe I have my facts wrong, but I sort of assumed that it was the case that they would die every Desolation. Regardless, the Heralds are definitely not unkillable, and, as I've stated previously, they need to win every fight. Odium's forces would only need to win one. I know he's in no rush, but, it doesn't make much sense for him to not take an expedited end if it presents itself. On 2/3/2024 at 9:22 AM, alder24 said: That's not true. The difference between Stormlight (raw, static investiture in a physical, gaseous form) and a soul (spiritual investiture, keyed to the identity of an individual, not physical in any way) is big. Those things are not the same. Stormlight is static investiture, a soul isn't even fully innate investiture (innate investiture is only a part of a soul), it's something else entirely. A soul is not even pure investiture, it's also a bunch of Connections and Identity. Affecting things that are tied to a body, keyed by Identity, is generally hard in Cosmere. It's not as intuitive as you think. Draining Stormlight is not the same as draining souls, those things are very different. Investiture is not equal to investiture, there are different types of investiture and different magics and objects interact differently with different types of investiture - there is static investiture, kinetic investiture, innate investiture - a soul (or rahter we should say a spirit web) is something else entirely, it contains a bit of innate investiture, but innate investiture doesn't make all of the investiture in the soul. For example Returned can sense innate investiture only, but not souls (drabs have souls too), while Seekers can sense only kinetic investiture, not static or innate. They didn't even know it's possible to trap spren in a gemstone, it's impossible for them to make this leap and trap Heralds in gemstones if they didn't even know you can do that with spren. Knowing that Raysium conducts static and kinetic investiture (but it never harmed innate investiture when used by Fused in combat) doesn't leap into trapping souls in a gemstone, which would make them fade - both of which they didn't know about. It's also possible that as long as Honor was alive he would provide enough connection to SR to prevent Heralds from fading even in a gemstone. And that means they would eventually get out and restart Oathpact. On 2/3/2024 at 9:22 AM, alder24 said: You mean someone in Cosmere had access to Raysium and studied it enough to know and write that it can trap souls in a gemstone? Nope. My entire point is that I don't think it would be necessary for someone else to have studied Raysium. Rayse, as a Shard, should have REALLY REALLY good insight into all of the connections, spiritual aspects, everything that makes a Herald a Herald and how the Oathpact works. That's basic Shard knowledge stuff. He's intimately involved in the entire situation. He should also be INTIMATELY aware of how Raysium works. It also doesn't make sense to me that a Shard living in that system, for that long, wouldn't know that Spren are able to be captured in gemstones. It's completely reasonable that the Fused and Humans wouldn't know that, but, I feel like it should be child's play for a Shard to make those connections. It's pure Realmatics and Investiture. To me this seems like information Odium should have had very very quickly, without the need for scholars to discover it somewhere in the Cosmere. On 2/3/2024 at 9:22 AM, alder24 said: Conscious effort is required and if he'd never bothered searching for different possible ways of ending Desolations, different ways of dealing with Heralds, different ways of using Raysium and finally ways to trap Heralds in a gemstone (which is very specific), he would have never known it's possible. That's a lot of steps to get the answer and it requires him to know some things are possible - like using gemstones to hold souls, which he didn't know. I know he's content to wait out the Oathpact as he was pretty well convinced he'd come out on top in the end, but his name is Odium, not Hubris. He would have been actively searching for ways to end the Oathpact, there's no way he wouldn't have been, right? It just seems like all this information should be readily available for a Shard. None of this is super complicated, really. Investiture IS Investiture, and it acts according to rules that the Shards are pretty intimately aware of. There may be different "spins" to Investiture, Identities, Connections, etc etc... and that dictates how that Investiture acts in any given situation, but, at the end of the day, the Shards are the foremost experts on the subject, right? Edited February 5 by listerfeend 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CtrlAltDepressed Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 20 minutes ago, listerfeend said: It's pure Realmatics and Investiture. To me this seems like information Odium should have had very very quickly, without the need for scholars to discover it somewhere in the Cosmere. Agreed. The issue here is not the Raysium. That stuff has been around. The fused have had weapons for thousands of years that can block a shardblade. What else could that be besides Raysium? I think the most likely scenario here is that the details of the Oathpact were interfering. We see that as soon as the Oathpact is widely known the be broken, almost immediately Jezrien is killed. It seems to me that Odium DID know about this, but that it wouldnt have helped them before now. The Heralds spirits were already in a weird cycle. We havent seen anywhere else that this respawn cycle happens, so its not a leap of logic to assume that Honor heavily modified what happens to those individuals spirits when they die. What im getting at, is since Honor prevented their spirits from going to the Beyond, that same mechanism would have prevented them from being trapped. Odium would have known this, given that he basically copied Honor with the fused in terms of their infinite respawn cycle. IE: stab a herald with raysium and gemstone, they are killed, but instead of trapping their soul they end up on Braize like they are supposed to. I believe that if Jezrien had been stabbed in this manner previously, he would have leaked back to braize instead of leaking into the beyond as we see happen. Odiums forces have been using Raysium pretty effectively. We see Leshwi when battling Kaladin, her sword drains his stormlight when fighting. So, yes, Odium was aware of the effects of his god metal, and he produced enough of it for at least the most distinguished Fused to use (seems pretty common though, for fused). It seems he was waiting for the Oathpact to be broken before imploying this method of trapping them specifically. In this day and age, if they wont help him (Nale), then I think we will see other Heralds killed in the same way (or attempts). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
listerfeend Posted February 5 Author Report Share Posted February 5 2 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: I believe that if Jezrien had been stabbed in this manner previously, he would have leaked back to braize instead of leaking into the beyond as we see happen. I hadn't considered that possibility. This would have "worked" in the past, but not in the same way. And it would be likely they would need a perfect gemstone to prevent them from leaking in general. Those we know are super rare. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: He specifically forced his Perpendicularity to be under the pits. It was most likely the opposite. The Ruin's perpendicularity manifested under the Pits because Pits contained so much Ruin's investiture that investiture simply seeped out there. Once the Pits were destroyed by Kelsier, the perpendicularity ceased to work as well. 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: Even if Honor's death is what makes it so that Jezrien super actually died, trapping them in a gemstone (this is conjecture on my part, and if it's not true would completely make all of my points moot) while they are on Roshar should leave the Respawn point open for the Fused, right? That would be my expectation. If the Heralds are not returned to Braize, then the Fuzed can get to Roshar, that's sort of my understanding, anyway. It's safe enough to assume that trapping a single Herald was beneficial to the Fused in some way, or at the very least to Odium's plans, since he sent Moash/Vyre to do the deed in the first place. It doesn't take much to assume that if trapping one is beneficial, trapping the others would be as well? Possibly but we don't know how the Oathpact would interpret this and something weird might have happened. Jezrien was trapped when Oathpact was already broken. 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: However, again, the Fused have been using Raysium on their weapons for the "past several Returns" which kind of means that he's made enough for them to use it in battle, Or it means because Odium was using more and more investiture on Roshar with each Desolation , he was getting more and more tied to the system which resulted in his essence leaking into PR as Raysium. He didn't have to create it directly. 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: Granted, we don't know how many of these weapons were used, but if they have enough to cover spears in it, they have enough to make daggers like we saw. Even if it is just plating the outside of the spear, that's a LOT of metal, more than enough for a few daggers, vs one spear used by one individual. I think it's just a wire inside the spear lined with aluminum. Just like the dagger had only its core made out of Raysium. Sure you can make a few daggers out of it but that's still not a lot of weapons considering how rare Raysium is. I disagree with your assumption that "Heralds can be killed by some random soldier with Raysium." Sure you can arm them with Raysium, but the chances of them killing a Herald with it are very, very low, because the actual number of soldiers with Raysium would be really, really low - inconsiderably small compared to the entire army. What would matter is their placement and timing of deploying them against Heralds - which would be an impossible task because Heralds fight so well not only with Shardblades, but with Surges. You have no means to actually plan a situation like this with any degree of success. Deploy them too early, they will be slain, too late Herald already moved on, get reinforcements or are dead and this doesn't even consider the fact that none of those Odium soldiers can compete in a fight against a Herald. There was none on Odium's side that could compete in 1 on 1 fight against a Herald - we've seen none so far, Fused are getting slain by modern, untrained and inexperienced Radiants, a Herald is vastly above anyone on Roshar in terms of skill. Taln is the best fighter in Cosmere, period. All of them are just insane at killing. With a very, very limited amount of Raysium at Odium's disposal, he would be literally throwing cannon fodder onto them in hopes that one of them would succeed and strike a Herald - realistically all of such attempts would just fail, Heralds weren't fighting alone. The only thing Odium would achieve by doing that is giving all Raysium on Roshar to Heralds and Radiants - which is a waste and possible disaster preventing Odium from getting more Raysium unless he invests in the system more - which he didn't want to do. 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: DIT TO ASK: When they say they have been using Raysium for the past several Returns, do they mean "the past several Returns this Desolation"? Or do they call a Desolation a Return? Now I'm not sure. If they call every time the are respawned a Return, and mean that they have been using Raysium the past few times they have been respawned in the current conflict, everything I've said goes out the window and none of it matters For Fused one Return is one Desolation. So several Desolations in the past. 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: Also, I'm not sure why he would have recently decided to Invest, I sort of took it more as "he's been trapped so long that he was Investing merely by existing there" I take it as he had to split and move the Everstorm to go around Taln. But it's also possible that he was there for so long that it just happened over time. 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: So, how was a Desolation ended then? Only one of them had to die? And they returned back to Braize willingly? Yes, they had to return willingly. WoK Prelude: Quote But I survived, Kalak thought, hand to breast as he hastened to the meeting place. I actually survived this time. That was dangerous. When he died, he was sent back, no choice. When he survived the Desolation, he was supposed to go back as well. Back to that place that he dreaded. Back to that place of pain and re. What if he just decided … not to go? Spoiler luke.spence (paraphrased) What caused a Desolation to end? Was it just the defeat of Odium's forces? Because the Desolations start when the Heralds break under torture. Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Because the Heralds can no longer be in existence. There is a certain period of time that they can be there, and after that, if they're there, they will start a new one. So the Heralds do need to leave for a Desolation to end darkanimereal1 (paraphrased) Oh. So they've got a time limit. Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) They do. Otherwise the Desolation will start again. What they discovered is not all of them have to. As long as one remains, the Desolation will not start again. luke.spence (paraphrased) So, by the nine leaving, did that actually break the Oathpact for them? Did it change the cycle of Desolations? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) They have not completely broken the Oathpact, despite what they may think. Words of Radiance Dayton signing (March 19, 2014) 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: My entire point is that I don't think it would be necessary for someone else to have studied Raysium. Rayse, as a Shard, should have REALLY REALLY good insight into all of the connections, spiritual aspects, everything that makes a Herald a Herald and how the Oathpact works. That's basic Shard knowledge stuff. He's intimately involved in the entire situation. He should also be INTIMATELY aware of how Raysium works. It also doesn't make sense to me that a Shard living in that system, for that long, wouldn't know that Spren are able to be captured in gemstones. It's completely reasonable that the Fused and Humans wouldn't know that, but, I feel like it should be child's play for a Shard to make those connections. It's pure Realmatics and Investiture. To me this seems like information Odium should have had very very quickly, without the need for scholars to discover it somewhere in the Cosmere. This is not as intuitive as you think. By your argumentation Honor should have known that spren are capable of forming Nahel Bond, granting Surges to humans and manifesting as Shardblades because they are his essence, his Invested Art, his Splinters - and yet he was totally surprised when they first started to do that. Shards aren't omniscient. The same applies to Rayse with his knowledge about Raysium and trapping people's souls in a gemstone. He might have never realized this is possible because he had never searched for such a solution - he might have wanted to brute force his way through Roshar instead and he was focusing on how to beat Honor and Splinter him. Odium's entire plan was to beat Roshar into a pulp, until humans can't fight anymore - he wasn't thinking in terms of "how can I end this now," but in terms of "I will win eventually" and every single Desolation was probably just the same in terms of his involvement. 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: I know he's content to wait out the Oathpact as he was pretty well convinced he'd come out on top in the end, but his name is Odium, not Hubris. He would have been actively searching for ways to end the Oathpact, there's no way he wouldn't have been, right? You underestimate the influence that the selfish, prideful Vessel can have over the Shard's behavior. Rayse was bad at controlling Odium, he was in conflict with the power. Instead of thinking he could have just rage and push his forces to be more destructive in retaliation - in his mind he would win eventually, wearing Heralds down with each new cycle. 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: Investiture IS Investiture Still disagree. Knowing that Stormlight can be held in gemstones doesn't equal to souls being taken out of their bodies and trapped in it as well. Please do not double post. In the future include your response in your previous post by editing it. You can still quote as usual, but those quotes will be placed in a new reply, however they can be simply copy and pasted into the post you're editing. 1 hour ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: The fused have had weapons for thousands of years that can block a shardblade. What else could that be besides Raysium? It was aluminum. RoW ch 19: Quote The secret to making the Fourth Bridge fly—and to making this handheld device work—involved a rare metal called aluminum. It was what the Fused used for weapons that could block Shardblades, but the metal didn’t just interfere with Shardblades—it interfered with all kinds of Stormlight mechanics. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CtrlAltDepressed Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 24 minutes ago, alder24 said: It was aluminum. RoW ch 19: I specifically remember Leshwi's weapon that drained the stormlight from Kaladin - was that Aluminum? I thought the parallel there is that Raysium sucks in investiture, therefore stealing the stormlight from the Radiants. As opposed to an aluminum blade that you would expect to block a shardblade, but would be inert when stabbed into something. We dont ever see aluminum suck up investiture, just block it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Returned Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 (edited) 3 hours ago, listerfeend said: I think you may misunderstand my point in all of this. I'm not saying it's bad writing. (Yes, I've used memes from Pitch Meetings, but it's really only cuz I thought they were funny, and sort of fit). I apologize for giving the impression I was trying to put words in your mouth; I was being glib (I always have trouble expressing myself precisely in message board forums). Similarly, I apologize if I've come off as aggressive or anything else like that-- I'm just excited to talk about the Cosmere! For clarity, I'm the one saying that it's bad writing to include something that doesn't make sense because it's the only way to make the plot work. It's sloppy and punishes a reader's efforts to pay careful attention in any event, and Sanderson has hung his hat on a setting with intricate rules which expand into logical consequences. Referring back to Pitch Meetings (Game of Thrones), when the dominance of dragons vs. scorpions arbitrarily shifts from one episode to the next, it was bad writing. It's inescapable internal nonsense that allows otherwise mutually exclusive plot events the writers wanted to include to coexist but makes any depth of thought or analysis of those matters a viewer might want irrelevant. But that conclusion is also a strong conclusion, one which forecloses any possibility of reasonable, in-universe explanation, and that's where the issue in your assertion is for me. If there is such a plot hole on this (or any) item in Stormlight, it would be problematic. Whether or not it's a plot hole depends on if it breaks any rules internal to the setting (we don't know enough of the rules to say either way, for now), if it's consistent with the motivations and modes of action of the characters involved (also debatable), and how singular it is (if it's plausible by the other two items, but sticks out and is only relevant to this plot event, it's a worse solution than others might have been). My position is that we have enough information to judge that it's fine by both the internal rule consideration and the motivation and mode of action consideration, and so doesn't necessarily stick out too badly on the singularity item. But if, as you offered in the OP, it's a kludge that doesn't fit with those items then I don't think we can avoid the "bad writing" charge (on that specific thing). And while I don't think that this is an example of it, as more and more Cosmere rules get nailed down I think that we're eventually going to run into situations where something awkward is the only way to reconcile some of the items in such a complex setting and meta-plot. An awful lot has already been ascribed to characters being able to see the future, but when that's problematic it turns out that they can't see the future that well, and also what is the future and what does it mean to see it? And, of course, there is subjectivity on all of these items. A good example is Sazed's description of Ruin's motivations in Hero of Ages: Ruin assumed that all humans were inevitably his servants, so he didn't take some actions or precautions that a human character surely would have. If you like that explanation (and I happen to), then you'll be satisfied enough with it as a natural, organic element of the story. If not, then it's probably always going to rankle. As to the topic proper I respect that you are not convinced, at present, that the items you've noted will be resolved in a satisfying way. It's a viewpoint and one that is valid. I am simply persuaded that permanently killing the Heralds in the past may not have been possible, would not have been easy at all even had it been possible, would have required a huge amount of Raysium to attempt in any way that might be expected to succeed, that creating and deploying that Raysium would have involved substantial risks to Odium's forces (risks which would be geometrically more pronounced as the amount of Raysium is increased), and may have cannibalized Odium's goals in the process to even try. From a broader perspective, we also have the issue of the completeness of knowledge of Shards. We know that Shards aren't actually all-knowing from a WoB, even if they could theoretically become so. We also know that Shards can be mistaken or plan inadequately from explicit events in-text, and also that they can be forced to do things they would rather not as well as be prevented from doing things that they do want. So for your position to be correct we need to assume that Rayse's knowledge was sufficiently complete to be aware of your strategy and that no (practical) constraints existed which would have prevented his applying it or made it undesirable. Since we know it's possible to permanently kill a Herald in at least some situations (because we saw it happen), and we know that Rayse didn't do that earlier, we have a couple of categories of possibility: it was possible before, or it wasn't. If it was possible before, Rayse either didn't try, or did try and failed. Assuming that it was possible we really only have a few descriptive categories from there: Rayse definitely knew enough to conceive the strategy and tried to execute it but was not successful; Rayse definitely knew enough to conceive the strategy, and it was not desirable enough to him to pursue; Rayse definitely knew enough to conceive the strategy, and made a mistake or foolish choice in not pursuing it; Rayse definitely knew enough to conceive the strategy and just arbitrarily didn't pursue it; or Rayse did not know enough to conceive the strategy and so did not have the option of pursuing it. It's only the second-to-last one (that he, for no reason, neglected a possible approach he was aware of even though it would work and was attractive enough to use) that comports with your position that it's a plot kludge. Since I'm not convinced of Rayse having perfect knowledge on this or any topic, and Rayse had substantial personality traits which impacted his thinking and actions, and I can think of (what I find) plausible risks and considerations which cannot be separated from the "kill the Heralds with Raysium" plan, I don't think that there is reason to reach the strong conclusion that it's a kludge and can only be justified because it's "necessary to make the story happen", even though it doesn't fit. Future developments may cause me to reconsider. Edited February 5 by Returned 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 9 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: I specifically remember Leshwi's weapon that drained the stormlight from Kaladin - was that Aluminum? I thought the parallel there is that Raysium sucks in investiture, therefore stealing the stormlight from the Radiants. As opposed to an aluminum blade that you would expect to block a shardblade, but would be inert when stabbed into something. We dont ever see aluminum suck up investiture, just block it. Most Fused don't have weapons like Leshwi does, but her spear is still made out of aluminum. RoW ch 5: Quote Leshwi’s spear was lined with a silvery metal that resisted Shardblade cuts. More importantly, it was set with a gemstone at its base. And this is how aluminum is often described by people who don't know what it is, for example Dawnshard ch 5: Quote Rushu deactivated the hoops and returned them to her box, along with some other machinery—including several silvery sheets of metal of varying thickness. “Aluminum,” Here is a description of Raysium, OB ch 121: Quote When Moash pulled the yellow-white knife free and form Navani's PoV, RoW ch 84: Quote She touched the tip of the dagger—with the white-gold metal—to one half of the divided ruby Those are clearly two different metals, Raysium has to run inside the spear, or at least under aluminum in Leshwi's spear. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CtrlAltDepressed Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 1 minute ago, alder24 said: Those are clearly two different metals, Raysium has to run inside the spear, or at least under aluminum in Leshwi's spear. It must be Raysium at some level to leech stormlight. A logical assumption would be that Raysium would NOT block a shardblade? Otherwise why add the aluminum at all? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
listerfeend Posted February 5 Author Report Share Posted February 5 7 minutes ago, Returned said: I apologize for giving the impression I was trying to put words in your mouth; I was being glib (I always have trouble expressing myself precisely in message board forums). Bro, same! That's why I wanted to make sure we were on the same page. No worries about anything hahaha 10 minutes ago, Returned said: Since we know it's possible to permanently kill a Herald in at least some situations (because we saw it happen), and we know that Rayse didn't do that earlier, we have a couple of categories of possibility: it was possible before, or it wasn't. If it was possible before, Rayse either didn't try, or did try and failed. We really only have a few possible categories here: Rayse definitely knew enough to conceive the strategy and tried to execute it but was not successful; Rayse definitely knew enough to conceive the strategy, and it was not desirable enough to him to pursue; Rayse definitely knew enough to conceive the strategy, and made a mistake or foolish choice in not pursuing it; Rayse definitely knew enough to conceive the strategy and just arbitrarily didn't pursue it; or Rayse did not know enough to conceive the strategy and so did not have the option of pursuing it. It's only the second-to-last one (that he, for no reason, neglected a possible approach he was aware of even though it would work and was attractive enough to use) that comports with your position that it's a plot kludge. Since I'm not convinced of Rayse having perfect knowledge on this or any topic, and Rayse had substantial personality traits which impacted his thinking and actions, and I can think of (what I find) plausible risks and considerations which cannot be separated from the "kill the Heralds with Raysium" plan, I don't think that there is reason to reach the strong conclusion that it's a kludge and can only be justified because it's "necessary to make the story happen", even though it doesn't fit. Yeah, all that tracks. Honestly, I think what I was mostly trying to do was come up with reasons why it hasn't seemed to happen in the past, since it's so clearly possible now. All of the arguments about what the outcomes could be and potential reasons why this wouldn't have been a high priority item in the past seem valid enough. And the fact remains, we have very little in the way of actual information on the mechanics behind MANY of the things we see happening. The Oathpact, the nature of Odiums binding to the system, what rules he has to operate by and why, etc... So basically all of them are acceptable reasons, but I somehow doubt that anything we have discussed is going to be the real reason 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 (edited) 13 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: It must be Raysium at some level to leech stormlight. A logical assumption would be that Raysium would NOT block a shardblade? Otherwise why add the aluminum at all? Making a whole spear out of Raysium is too expensive to be even a consideration. That spear would resist a Shardblade cut - god metals resist being cut by a Shardblade. But Leshwi's spear is clearly lined with aluminum on the outside (lined not made of), so there Raysium is either running along one side of the spear as a thin wire (Kaladin might have noticed that at some point), under the aluminum layer, or in the very core of the probably wooden spear. Edit: Spoiler Andrassy If atium is a metal that is relevant throughout the Cosmere, which seems to be the case from your comment, then it could have special properties that go beyond its use in allomancy, so that this metal that is relevant to everything doesn't only feel useful in Mistborn. I'd be interested to know, for instance, if it's at all useful in the forging of weapons or whatever. Anyway I dunno I'm just a very early reader and I'm already trying to give the author ideas, but from my perspective I don't see why atium not being used by all allomancers is a big problem. The usefulness of atium could go way beyond allomancy perhaps. Brandon Sanderson It does! And yes, atium weapons would be very useful (even atium alloy) for doing things like resisting Shardblades. So there is quite a bit of application. General Reddit 2020 (June 23, 2020) The biggest problem Fused had with Raysium was that it was very rare, so they had to sparingly use it to create as many weapons as possible. Navani's notebook, entry Dagger describes Raysium in the dagger as "a vein running down the middle of it," so the amount of Raysium used for each weapon would be relatively small and unnoticeable - too small to protect the entire spear from being cut by a Shardblade. Edited February 5 by alder24 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
listerfeend Posted February 5 Author Report Share Posted February 5 9 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: A logical assumption would be that Raysium would NOT block a shardblade? Otherwise why add the aluminum at all? I would say that it would likely be due to however limited Raysium actually is. If Raysium is severely limited in its production or their ability to get to it (we don't know the mechanics behind god metal manifestation) then it would make sense for them to have maybe just a core of Raysium in the spear, with a wire that attaches to the gemstone. Then cover the haft of the spear in something more readily available, like aluminum. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Returned Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 8 minutes ago, listerfeend said: So basically all of them are acceptable reasons, but I somehow doubt that anything we have discussed is going to be the real reason Lol, I'm always frustrated at not having all of the plot and setting information at my fingertips, but if we could predict all of it then the future books would be boring! I think that we superfans at 17th Shard do have a habit of overcommitting to our deductions and extrapolations, though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CtrlAltDepressed Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 Just now, Returned said: Lol, I'm always frustrated at not having all of the plot and setting information at my fingertips, but if we could predict all of it then the future books would be boring! I think that we superfans at 17th Shard do have a habit of overcommitting to our deductions and extrapolations, though. Part of the 'problem' is that Brandon loves this. In the most recent spoiler stream, he spoke directly to 17th sharders and said that 'one of the theories ive seen posted about SA5 is correct' WHICH ONE BRANDON??? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+robardin he/him Posted February 7 Report Share Posted February 7 I doubt such a momentous event as one of the climactic moments of Oathbringer would not be something Brandon had plotted out as a core point from early on - he's not a "discovery" writer. So the fact that a Herald could be "perma-killed" that way, yet it had never happened in any prior Desolation but the Final one, is no accident. Consider: this was the first time Odium has had direct minions on Roshar since the breaking of the Oathpact after the so-called Aharietiam. Since then, there had only the "False Desolation" engendered not by Odium and involving his Fused, but by Ba-Ado-Mishram stepping up and giving "forms of power" (Regals) to singers, that ended with BAM in a gem and the mindbombing of all but the "Last Legion" of "listeners". So one might conclude that Jezrien having given up his Honorblade and forsworn his Oaths has something to do with his being susceptible to the Raysium dagger. But Odium wasn't able to manifest on Roshar enough to drop Raysium, nor to get a minion he could communicate with directly (Fused or sentient Voidspren like Ulim), until enough of the listeners took stormform and called for the Everstorm: as Ulim put it when Venli freed him, "that stupid Herald is still standing strong all these years later. We have to work around him." The Everstorm is something envisioned by a dying Honor, as he mentions it in one of his pre-recorded visions to Dalinar, which was recorded AFTER both the Heralds forswearing, and the Recreance of the Knights Radiant. That's also something that had never happened before, and thus is likely one of the "things Odium can start to push through when the Oathpact has worn thin enough". Even so, they still had to get Moash, a human, to do it: the Fused who gave him the dagger and then watched the execution were described as seemingly "not daring to do the deed themselves". Finally, we don't entirely know what the terms of the Oathpact were, except that Odium is bound by it to remain in the Rosharan system even after the Splintering of Honor, and that Odium was still unable to start the Everstorm without human assistance (Ulim was brought in a gem through some kind of barrier and given to Venli by a mysterious Terriswoman named Axindweth, apparently a Ghostblood since she was chased off by "another of her kind" (Terris Feruchemist) in Gereh who was hunted/killed by Mraize, who had also facilitated bringing across the stormspren to Roshar in gems). Hmm, maybe that last bit is part of the reason for the Everstorm. It could always have been a way to "work around" the Oathpact, except it would need help from worldhoppers putting voidspren in gems in Shadesmar and pulling them across to the Physical Realm on Roshar, which until now didn't exist (presumably the Ghostbloods have a specific reason for wanting to start this True Desolation)? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Highprince10 he/him Posted February 7 Report Share Posted February 7 I feel like one big reason they didn't make this discovery in the past is how would they stab a herald with it. Even if you have lets say ten raysium weapons you have to hit the herald while they obliterate your ranks and are backed up by an army. Stabbing herald with a killing blow with a weapon there are very few of and not knowing what would happen would be much harder to convince other fused whereas trying to then stab a drunk insane herald with no one helping them is much easier to convince other fused. Also no one expected such powerful entities to be able to be held in a gem till Ba-ado-Mishram 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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